This just in from Hasbro - now that the new G.I. Joe animated feature has been fully released, you have a chance to ask questions of the creators of the series! Per Hasbro:

Joaquim Dos Santos (Supervising Director/Art Director), Dan Norton (Lead Art Designer) and Steve Drucker (Executive Producer) will be answering a select set questions chosen from those submitted by fans via the special Q&A submission form found at http://www.hasbro.com/resolute/resolute/en_US/ask.cfm.

Between now and 11:59pm on Sunday, May 3, fans are asked to submit questions to the G.I. Joe: Resolute team. On Thursday, May 7th, a special video will be broadcast on gijoeresolute.com, with Joaquim, Dan and Steve answering some of the more popular and interesting questions submitted by you, the fans.
Posted by charlie on April 30th 2009, 06:37 AMComments(2)Leave CommentShare

A reminder for the Preserve readers out there, the second round of Mer-Man figures should be available today at noon, EST on mattycollector.com! Don't forget to try to snag one for yourself if you missed the first offering (like we did!). While this batch is sure to go fast, I think it will be nothing like the blazing speed with which Hordak will sell out when he goes on sale soon. Hopefully the various problems that Mattel has been having with their web sales engine will be worked out by then, and all the fans both in the US and over seas will be able to get the figures that they want!

My vocal and fervent distrust of genius auteur Michael Bay is nothing new to readers of the Preserve. Furthermore, given my feelings towards the first live action Transformers movie of 2007, I have little hope for the 2009 version to be any bit of an improvement, if not substantially worse.

It is, therefore, interesting news that at least there is now a glimmer of hope in the form of one of the very best voice actors to ever grace a microphone, Frank Welker! The voice of G1 Megatron and Soundwave, Gadget's Dr. Claw, Dreadnok Torch, GoBot Scooter, Dark Rider from Turbo Teen...I mean, read the man's IMDB page, it is always breathtaking. Now there is something that will cause me to see this movie, and all my dislike of Bay may at least be tempered. However, the other possibility is that Bay will somehow so ruin Welker's performance that he will forever damn himself in the eyes of the old school fans. We'll soon see! Posted by charlie on April 28th 2009, 06:42 AMLeave CommentShare

Hasbro has just announced the special edition figures that will be up for sale at this summer's San Diego Comic Con! We covered the event last year, and got to see first-hand the utter madness that is the Hasbro booth, with a perpetual line hundreds of fans long jamming the center of the convention hall. Even the issuance of color-coded tickets in a totally different part of the event, designed to cut down on foot traffic immediately around the booth, did little to ease what is clearly one of the central draws of the show these days.

Look then, at what will be causing the demand this year! They will have a 12" Baroness (Rise of Cobra style) as well as a 2-pack of Rise of Cobra Destro figures. Destro will come in a James 'Destro' McCullen family tome, outlining the history of the McCullen clan! Definitely a cool packaging idea, and we're looking forward to seeing some pics of the book opened up! Click here for the official press release over on the hasbro.com website.
Collector's Note: Remember that a limited quantity of show exclusives usually show up on hasbrotoyshop.com after the event, so if you can't make it all the way to California this year, keep those web browsers ready and you might be able to score the figures without eBay or a long flight! Posted by charlie on April 27th 2009, 11:58 AMLeave CommentShare

The G.I. Joe Modern Era line may have been put on hold while the Rise of Cobra movie line takes over for at least the rest of the year, but thankfully we are very slow around here at the Preserve so the line lives on! Today we are featuring one of the Combat Heroes 2-packs from wave 2, Flint vs. Baroness!

It really is a shame that the 3rd wave of these little guys was canceled, as we've complained earlier. Hopefully Hasbro will make good on their claim of releasing the figures from that wave in some sort of set later in 2009 - we'll see! In the mean time, enjoy the Baroness in this pack. She has quite the facial expression in her box art, and the figure gives us yet another take on this fan-favorite character. Posted by charlie on April 26th 2009, 06:05 PMLeave CommentShare

Nothing says a good weekend like the first hot day of the year, absurdly tiring yardwork with a good friend, and then the first bbq burgers of the year, fresh potato salad and an OJ Simpson movie night! Today the Preserve movie picks of the week are Capricorn One, and CIA Code Name: Alexa, both 'featuring' if not actually staring everyone's favorite court TV celebrity, OJ!

Capricorn is a more serious movie from 1978 about a Mars mission that goes wrong, is filmed on a sound stage, and the high-stakes coverup that follows. Code Name: Alexa is anything but serious, as it is another fantastic 1992 release from our favorite PM Entertainment group, who brought us many very fine Don 'the dragon' Wilson movies! 'Alexa' features OJ as a down-and-out cop who tries to do the right thing, along with a pretty clear La Femme Nikita rip...lots of exploding cars and fire-suits as you would expect from the most fun production house of the early '90s! Pick these two up if you want a loosely tied, serious/camp movie double header! Posted by charlie on April 25th 2009, 09:54 PMLeave CommentShare

Since we're right around the date that Mattel promised some news about the 'second round' of Mer-Man figures hot off the slowboat from China, it seemed a good idea to update Preserve readers with their current release plans.

According to the recent press release on mattycollector.com, the next batch of Squdish Rex will be available for purchase at 12 noon EST on April 29th, 2009! So, once again everyone, set your alarms, and hope that you have a desk job which doesn't restrict your browsing or log what you do, and spend your entire lunch break trying to get their site to sell you some toys. I have high hopes that it will work this time! It will also be interesting to see how quickly this batch sells out - I predict 'quickly'...gone by the end of the day if not under 2 hours.

Today we turn our attention to the Transformers Universe release of the character Dinobot. Hailing from the Beast Wars series, this was a complex character beset with confusion over loyalty and honor. He was at his core a true warrior and lived only for the honor of deed and battle, but clearly being on the Predacon team was the wrong wagon for such a star! He was later to defect to the Maximals and joined the fight for right, and finally found the honor for which he was searching. Click the image below for more pics and the full bio of this great character.

The original G.I. Joe cartoon had a number of characters so memorable that they stuck with the original fans for decades, still eliciting visceral reactions all these many years later. Certainly one of the best designed, intriguing and all around awesome characters was Zartan, and it's great that we have gotten not one but two versions of him in the new G.I. Joe lines (one 25th Anniversary, one Modern Era). Click the image below for a few more shots and the always excellent bio of Zartan, with his rockin' accessory the Chameleon swamp skier!

In the mid-'80s, Micro Machines were definitely awesome. In fact, there is a pretty sizable collection of those cool little die cast dudes around the Preserve archives that are just waiting patiently for their moment in the spotlight. One of the best things about the line was the commercials, and I'm sure that anyone of the proper age, aka. aging dudes like ourselves, will remember John Moschitta, Jr. the speed talking spokesman!

After seeing him in purportedly 100 commercials for the line, it was fantastic to hear him voicing the speedster Blurr in the 1986 Transformers Movie. Now, in 2009 Transformers is back on TV in the form of the ever popular (but canceled) Animated series, and he has returned to again voice the character of Blurr - how cool is that! Well, today we celebrate John Moschitta and his alter ego Blurr with the figure from Transformers Animated. Click the image below for more images and the lightning fast bio!

So yesterday I was excitedly blabbering about the new Terminator and Star Trek lines from Playmates. Well, this morning I double-checked my dubious memory during the Monday Target run, and in fact it is the 3 3/4" Star Trek figures which have the build-a-bridge pieces. Like I admitted already, I'm woefully uneducated about this line! Makes sense though, since a scale bridge for the 6" line would really be Mego sized, but the G.I. Joe scale is much more manageable.

If you're looking for a new line to collect, you could do a lot worse than this Trek offering. Now it remains to be seen if the movie can deliver the goods! Posted by charlie on April 20th 2009, 06:27 AMLeave CommentShare

Our relaxing Saturday afternoon trip to Target discovered that Playmates is really dominating the Action Figure aisle all of the sudden! Their products for both the upcoming Terminator and Star Trek movies had hit the shelves and were giving Star Wars and the poorly managed Transformers sections a run for their money.

The Terminator figures look like they did their best with what the movie gave them to work with - ie. probably not many distinguishable characters, and several different types of robots. They had several scales available as well, and even a large vehicle (looked like a hunter-killer). The Star Trek figures however look like a lot of fun! The figures come in a variety of scales, 3 3/4", 6" and 12". The 6" scale in particular looks great and each figure comes with a piece of the build-a-bridge playset. This is a great idea, and I hope their sales do well because of it!

We're sort of unfamiliar with these two lines since Playmates wasn't displaying any aspect of them at either New York Comic Con or Toy Fair. Given the good job they are doing, we'd like to be more informed, so maybe a call to their press office is in order! Posted by charlie on April 19th 2009, 11:50 AMLeave CommentShare

How do you spend your Friday nights? Well I decided to review 2008's Punisher: War Zone for the Preserve. Why you may ask? Well, certainly we try to avoid watching anything classically defined as 'good' around here, and this movie was more than up to that challenge! Click the image below for our full rambling discussion and more pictures than you could possibly want!

Ok folks, it's a big G.I. Joe Resolute day! We got a look at the trailer a few days ago, but now check out the official site, as well as parts 1 and 2 of the show that are available now at adultswim's site! Definitely a screwy roll-out, going from the announcement at SD Comic Con last year, to a long drafty silence, then the release of some figures, then more silence, and suddenly the appearance of the show on the Adult Swim program listing and now here it is! Believed by many to be the superior product compared to the forthcoming live action movie, only time will tell, but already it looks like that may be a done deal! Posted by charlie on April 17th 2009, 03:08 PMLeave CommentShare

The eBay seller ws_toys has become famous for getting their hands on toys that have yet to be released, or even revealed by Hasbro! In fact, they are the ones who leaked the very first pictures of the upcoming Destro figure, days if not weeks before Hasbro got around to revealing it, no doubt spoiling some sort of fanfare which they may have intended. Our standing watch of his listings today came back with a veritable slowboatload of new carded Joes, so we figured it was worth linking to the auctions, some of which end very soon!

Click any of the names below to be whisked away to the auctions, and best of luck!

That's right folks, the runaway success of the now 6 month old Masters of the Universe Classics internet-only line by Mattel continues with the categorical sellout of Mer-Man in 1.5 hours today! They explained on their site that they have, in an effort to meet the obviously increased demand, increased their order from Big Chinese Toy Making Factory but that this is the first month of the greater numbers, and boat #2 is still on the way! So, they assured everyone who maybe had something better to do between the hours of noon and 1:30 today that another round of Mer-Man will be available on or around April 23rd. This is particularly delightful news for those of us here at the Preserve who managed, in spite of posting the alert on this very site, to fail to place our order successfully!

Making matters worse, many people over on the busy he-man.org forums report serious troubles with the site, resulting in placing multiple orders, or no orders at all, and watching the clock run out in record time. Let me assure you, there are many unkind words on the Internets this night. However, overall, some vocal board members aside, it is still great to see the amazing demand for this line which will only result in more great figures and greater ability for the 4Horsemen to produce cool new parts. Let's hope that boat #2 has enough fun for everyone, and that going forward the supply at least comes close to meeting the demand! Posted by charlie on April 15th 2009, 06:54 PMLeave CommentShare

Preserve readers, I had meant to post this yesterday to give everyone a little warning, but it was not to be! Today at noon on mattycollector.com, Mer-Man will become available for sale! Given the amazing speed with which this line has been selling out lately, it has actually become clear that ordering the first moment you can is how it must be done. So - dust off those credit cards and get ready to add another excellent figure to the modern day relaunch of MotU!

Press Release - Hasbro's Transformers and G.I. Joe on DVDPress Release: With the astonishingly huge amount of 'tv on dvd' that has been flowing from studios over the past several years, it was a shame that two of the most popular and iconic shows of the '80s were solidly out of print. While they had both found release on DVD, it was early on in the game and now the partial sets will run you upwards of $100 each on eBay or other secondary markets.

Now - things they are a changing! Shout! Factory and Hasbro have announced that they will be releasing these two favorite series on dvd once again - click the link for the full release! Read MorePosted by charlie on April 14th 2009, 08:38 AMLeave CommentShare

Ever since the first (and still hands down the best) Transformers movie hit theaters in 1986, the character of Ultra Magnus has been a fan favorite. This is particularly amusing since he's sort of an ineffectual sad-sack in the film, though has the great distinction of uttering one of several cherished surprise swear words in the film. Certainly anyone who saw it in theaters as a child had no sooner dried their eyes from the death of Prime than we see ol' Magnus blown apart by the Sweep armada on the planet of Junk. Good thing Wreck Gar and his buddies are such handy bots! Well, the Transformers Animated series continued to deliver the goods with a great character and toy of Magnus himself. Click the image below for his features, bio, and additional pics!

Let's celebrate Easter with a late Sunday look at another excellent set of G.I. Joe Modern Era Combat Heroes. Today we turn our sights to Duke vs. a Cobra Trooper - click the image below for more close-up pics.

Consistently the only fault that I can find with these figures is the occasional overly manic grin that they are sporting to make them more 'kid friendly'. Duke in this set particularly suffers from this effect, and looks like he is taking immense pleasure from pointing that huge gun at the apparently terrified trooper's head. Actually, upon closer inspection I guess that makes this an unexpectedly cool set, and the lack of a mouth at all on the trooper gave the Hasbro designers a little extra leeway to perhaps make the face seem a little less than excited to be there. A fitting Easter set, at this time of peace and joy! Posted by charlie on April 12th 2009, 07:35 PMLeave CommentShare

I find that enjoyment of various life topics goes in sets, where people who like a certain thing are highly likely to also like a certain other thing. At least in my, admittedly limited, experience people who like the sort of topics that we discuss here on the Preserve will also like Chuck Norris. As such, it is incumbent upon me to mention the fantastic classic Norris film Code of Silence. Regarded as perhaps the high-point of an admittedly specific genre, this movie is packed with thrills, car chases, explosions, pinball machines and roundhouse kicks! Click the image for our review!

Speaking of the upcoming Live Action Transformers movie, here's something no one really wants to see either, a Shia the Beef action figure! On a motorcycle! From that awesome scene in the Crystal Skull movie! Well, it is a blast from the recent past, tying up a loose end and finishing the 'Deluxe' gallery from Hasbro's short-lived (but overall very cool) Indiana Jones line of 2008. Also, a very good silver lining is that the bike is actually very cool, and a great piece for the $10 price level of this pack. Click the image for more pics and the back-of-box text...if you have nothing better to do!

Now for an update on the shenanigans going down this week at Target stores. Word on the Internet was that the stores had upped the price of the sets, as reported yesterday. What we found locally however, having nothing to put on the shelf, is that they replaced the exclusive 2-packs end-cap with one shelf of Bumper Battles and one shelf of Universe Deluxes. The Joe jets are still sitting pretty on the lower half of the cap as before. As The Uncle wisely put it yesterday, someone is putting together their resume as we speak!

Now that we've seen that whole fiasco run its course, I figured that a little photographic proof of how we contributed would be in order!

We managed to get three of the Sunstorm packs and two of the oh-so-cool purple repaint Shockwave sets. Several Sunstorm sets (clearly the less popular of the two) were left behind in the hopes that an actual kid, or at least another fan, might get to pick them up. We were hit with a double whammy in finding the final wave of Universe Deluxes, and you can see Hot Shot and Ratchet book-ending the haul.

Since the Animated Voyager sets were on sale as well, it seemed a good time to pick up the one and only Wreck Gar in the store. His episode is especially cool in that he is voiced by Weird Al - this is old news of course, but it makes me so glad to repeat it. What a brilliant bit of voice casting by none other than Sue Blu (Arcee) to get the man who sang what became the Junkion theme song in the 1986 movie to provide the character voice 23 years later!

Ok, mentioning Arcee reminds me to vent just a little, and this is a spoiler for the upcoming Transformers movie, so do with that info what you will. We have known for a while that fan favorite character Arcee will be in the upcoming Transformers live action movie. What we recently learned is that genius auteur Michael Bay didn't like how the character was working out, so kills her meaninglessly and moves on with the (apparently re-written daily) plot. I was already prepared to not like this movie - sadly - but I admit to being in the throes of righteous nerd rage when reading the press releases on this topic. I won't carry on, but felt it was worth mentioning if anyone needed additional reasons to hate on Bay! This story ran everyplace, but I particularly enjoyed Rob's (of toplessrobot.com) take on it. Posted by charlie on April 9th 2009, 06:00 PMComments(2)Leave CommentShare

How embarrassing for Target! It looks like they have re-adjusted the price on those Transformers Animated 2-packs back up to the nosebleed inducing height of $22.99, which is only a measly $2 off of their original price. That is a more believable 'sale' and makes it look like that $4.99 madness was some sort of grievous error, or hack! Now of course I suspect every store is already sold out, so this new pricetag will be the one and only thing on the shelf for the next three days. I'm certainly glad that we did our part to clear those racks! Congrats to anyone who was able to scoop up this short-lived deal, and we'll continue to report on this foolishness as details become available - it is just way too amusing not to. Posted by charlie on April 8th 2009, 09:49 AMLeave CommentShare

Several weeks ago we posted the prototype Nemesis Prime figure that The Uncle had secured from the distant parts of the exotic Orient. He did a great job of comparing the prototype to the more readily obtainable versions of that same mold, including the actual San Diego Comic Con Exclusive Nemesis Prime. Well, we finally got around to creating the gallery for exactly that figure - click the image below for more looks at his voyager class Nemesis Prime and to read the Bio that clearly has a little extra care in it!

Today we discovered that the local Target was in fact entirely sold out of the amazingly discounted Transformers Animated Exclusive 2-packs, which I would assume is the story nation wide. It's amusing to look at the tag and see that the sale extends until Saturday, assuring that they will have a mostly empty end-cap display for the better part of the week. What is sharing that end-cap, though, are the second wave of Target Exclusive G.I. Joe jets! Now to see a similar discount applied to those would be an outcome about which one does not even dare to fantasize! Posted by charlie on April 7th 2009, 06:55 PMLeave CommentShare

We have one more Ultra Class figure from the Transformers Universe collection that is photographed and posted from the vaults of The Uncle. It is the calculating Decepticon Onslaught, who while powerful and talented prefers to outmatch his enemies from a distance using his merciless planning. Click the image below for a full look at his stats and more pictures!

We're still making our way through the recent collection of The Uncle, so stay tuned for more great pieces from his shelves. Also, I hope that some Preserve readers met with success at Target today in the great discount hunt of '09! Very rarely do the benefits of living in a small town become apparent, but today was one of those times. Certainly in Long Island and other major areas, eager fans or scheming scalpers had long since swept the shelves clear of the Target Exclusive Transformers Animated 2-packs that just hit the inexplicable price of $4.99. We were amazed, therefore, to find several of each set remaining in our local Target store this morning, and I admit that nearly all of them left with us. To top it off, they also had the sixth and final wave of Transformers Universe Deluxe figures, so we added Hot Shot and Ratchet to the haul.

Collector Tip: It has become apparent that the fifth and final wave of Tf:Universe Legends figures, featuring Cosmos, Warpath, Wheelie and Rodimus, are in fact very difficult to find. All mention of them is stripped from hasbrotoyshop.com, and the only eBay options are direct from China with dubious stylings. If you happen to see these in your local stores and have any interest, picking them up seems like a good plan. Chances are that they will end up being pretty rare - proving our constant theory that the final wave is often a good purchase! Posted by charlie on April 6th 2009, 06:20 PMComments(2)Leave CommentShare

One of the figures that we were the most excited about from the entire G.I. Joe Modern Era line was Specialist Trakker (better known as Matt Trakker of M.A.S.K. fame!). We finally managed to get one from Preserve friend and informant Rudger some number of weeks ago, though now they seem to be much more available on store shelves. Click the image for the full gallery!

The main reason for the better availability is that there is a multi-month gap in product release that Hasbro has built for themselves. For a few months previous to now, wave after wave of Modern Era product was hitting the shelves, and was largely impossible to find. Now that the new movie toys aren't due for months, we are getting a number of revision cases that provide the chance to go back and pad the collection. Interestingly enough, some pieces are still hard to find, such as the wave 4 vehicles of the Sting Raider and Ghost H.A.W.K., many of the later-wave 12" figures, as well as the very elusive 'Best of 80s' DVD Battles pack. This last one is a real problem since the five packs in this series had a build-a-Mass-device feature, and thanks to that difficult to find 5th item everyone has an incomplete device! Well, we shall see if those turn up in greater numbers like Specialist Trakker has recently.

Collector Tip: In addition to the 'Best of 80s' DVD Battles pack that you should buy on sight, also be aware that Target has, this very day, slashed prices on the Target Exclusive Transformers Animated 2-packs that were just put on sale a few weeks ago. They hit the shelves at $24.99 and are now going for $4.99 - that's some crazy discount, and of course looks very bad for this line. Make sure to hit up Target if you have any interest in these sets - they are certain to sell out fast!
Posted by charlie on April 5th 2009, 05:55 PMComments(2)Leave CommentShare

Way back at Toy Fair 2008 we had our first looks at the Transformers Universe line. One of the pieces we saw was the Ultra class Powerglide figure, which is a great reimagining of the previously mini-class Powerglide. His bio tells us that he's not faster than most Decepticons, but has a lot of moves up his sleeve that more than make up for it! The best thing to know about the Universe line is that the Voyager figures, while borrowing classic names, were all repaints of figures from other series of Transformers, while the Ultra class were all new molds! Click the image for more shots of Powerglide, and his full bio and specs!

After much seeming delay, confusion and rampant speculation on the part of suspicious Joe fans, the Warren Ellis penned, grown-up themed G.I. Joe Resolute series finally has a release date! Set your recording devices for April 25th at midnight on Adult Swim. We also had been told that the series was written for internet distribution in 5 minute chunks, but Ellis was kind enough to make sure all the pieces go together well. Seems that Adult Swim will be airing them all together for the premiere, which ought to be great! Check out their schedule if you need some proof, and be sure to pick up the new Resolute 5-pack that should be available on store shelves now. Thanks to Rob at ToplessRobot.com for our first sighting of this news. Posted by charlie on April 3rd 2009, 06:32 PMLeave CommentShare

Press Release - Lego City Fan Voting Starts April 3rdPress Release -
Hot off the presses from the Lego news room - from April 3rd until April 24th, fans will be able to make their voices heard in support of the 2010 expansion of Lego City! Click the 'Read More' link for full details on this great new Lego event, and to learn more about the possible shape of things to come in Lego City! Read MorePosted by charlie on April 2nd 2009, 10:46 AMComments(4)Leave CommentShare

LaQ was one of our favorite companies to meet for the first time at the show, and one of our favorite overall! They are a 'building toy' company, as are others that we met with, but their product is just enough different from the norm to be exceedingly awesome! Driven by the manic brilliance of The Professor (sadly not in attendence at the show this year), who our friend from ONell Design assured us is amazing, his designs and concepts are truly inspired. Due to the structure of the blocks, they are able to pivot very freely, allowing for dynamic, moving creations like a shark hand puppet, articulated snakes, monkeys and even a full suit of samurai armor that The Professor wore around the show last year! Click the image below for the full gallery of their fun booth!

And with that, we've finished up our coverage of Toy Fair 2009! I hope that everyone has enjoyed getting a look at both the major companies that you expect, and the smaller companies like LaQ that you get to see unexpectedly. As a closing image, we found a talented artist doing this beautiful chalk art of Optimus Prime on the outskirts of the 'action figure' area of the show - enjoy his art, and thanks for watching our coverage of Toy Fair!